Fr John Bollan, Author at Catholic Herald

Fr John Bollan

June 28, 2018

Anglicans, like their Catholic counterparts, tend to celebrate most of their ordinations on or about the feast of Ss Peter and Paul (or “Petertide”, as they are wont to call it). I’ve recently become aware of a spat among some of my Church of England friends – mostly conducted on Twitter – regarding the practice

Fr John Bollan: When snow cancelled Mass

March 08, 2018

Like many people, I was seduced (and deceived) by a spell of pleasant weather a couple of weeks ago. There was a discernible heat in the sun, the daffodils were budding, and washing could be seen hanging out to dry – all harbingers of spring in these parts. Those of us who dusted off the

Fr John Bollan: The two faces of January

January 11, 2018

Although our weekdays have mostly succumbed to the Norse and Anglo-Saxon influences on the English language, the months still carry a discernible echo of their Latin origins. January is derived from Janus, Rome’s two-faced god of boundaries and thresholds: his unique facial arrangement allowed him to look forwards and backwards simultaneously. I often find there

Fr John Bollan: The perfect tattoo for a bishop

November 16, 2017

A book I’m currently enjoying dipping into is the recently published Line of Enquiry: Favourite Lines from Classical Literature (edited by Paul Corcoran, Trinity College Dublin Press). It’s a collection of 50 beloved gobbets of mostly ancient eloquence in both Greek and Latin, with a translation and a brief commentary on why each one was

Why priests don’t want to move

October 19, 2017

I can’t help but wonder if October 13 was the most auspicious date for the bishop’s latest clergy reshuffle to take effect. By the end of the day, removal vans would have transported vast theological libraries, dusty knick-knacks and the other impedimenta of priests’ lives from one end of the diocese to the other. In

Fr John Bollan: Local cyclist named successor to St Ambrose

July 27, 2017

When Donald Trump won the US election last year, the next day’s Ellon Times carried the headline “Aberdeenshire business owner wins presidential election”. I love how these newspapers have a habit of picking up on the local interest aspect of world events. Here in Scotland we had the ecclesiastical equivalent of that White House scoop,

Fr John Bollan: The staunch Catholics with no time for Mass

June 29, 2017

Pope Francis is the first pontiff in recent history not to have participated in the Second Vatican Council. But the imprint of post-conciliar ecclesiology is very apparent in his own thinking and speaking about the Church. He is clearly familiar with the “models of the Church” as articulated by his fellow Jesuit, Avery Dulles (who

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